The advocates of the US Health Care reform don’t give in and keep on working hard to promote Barack Obama Health Care bill. Families USA, a non-commercial organization has received one million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Foundation to create a database of successful stories from people who joined the Obamacare program.The Voice of Russia discussed this issue with Stan Veuger, a resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute (AEI). His academic research focuses on political economy and has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Mr. Veuger writes frequently for popular audiences on a variety of topics including policy uncertainty and Obamacare. Thank you so much for joining us, Stan. How can you comment on the creation of the so-called database of successful Obamacare stories? Can it be regarded as a desperate measure considering that Obamacare enrollment members are really quite low?
By Angela Davis. Hello, how’re you doing? I don’t think that’s a fair way to put it. Families USA is an organization, it is always backed this kind of expansion of the role of the Federal government in the provision of health care. The grant they’ve received comes from another private foundation, a private foundation that focuses on health and public health issues and they are both ideologically pretty much aligned with the Administration. I don’t think it is desperate, I think it is natural for them to follow this course of action. Are Obamacare enrollment numbers fairly low from your point of view? And they are certainly stagnantly low and it is of course a huge local problem for the administration that the numbers are so low that people are actually
 having their plans cancelled and that the website and the surrounding infrastructure are still not up and running but this particular grant was issued at the beginning of October when it was not clear at all yet. Now is the reason that the enrollment numbers are low is that only because the web site is not working? Its certainly doesn’t help. I think it is certainly a major factor up until now especially giving how much attention the web site have gotten, I can see how people would think “Okay, I have until mid December, I’m just going to wait until they fix their problems”, so I think if they manage to fix it, you will certainly see enrollment take up. Another problem, of course, is that for a lot of people the news policies offered are just not that attractive, 
especially for young and healthy people who do not receive subsidies. What in your opinion is the biggest problem with Obamacare today? The biggest and the most urgent problem today is certainly the web site and how hard it is for people to enroll, I think the bigger problem in the long run is that it is another middle class entitlement program they will inevitably expand the size of government will force taxes to be raised and will take some responsibility away from people should probably try to bear themselves. What do you think about this whole project? This Families USA that’s a non-commercial organization but they received a million dollars to create a database of successful stories. Are there any successful stories? It seems a little bit early, doesn’t it? I mean, the fewer successful stories there are the more money you need to find them, right? I can see how their work would need even more funding now than so few people have enrolled. So when are these successful
Actually, these numbers are too kind. Most recent numbers show 64% want Obama-Care "Tossed into the Ash-Bin of History." To Senator Cruz, push this Bill with all your might. America is with you. Source
stories supposed to appear? I think that the kind of stories they would try to find would be people who do not receive health care from their employers, who have pre existing conditions and who are relatively old or relatively poor. They would now face relatively low premiums because of community rating regulations and they all receive relatively high subsidies because they are poor. I think that’s the target group. Is Obamacare really working? Is the program working? The low number of people that are really enrolled, does it seem to be working at least somehow for, I guess, there is a target audience that doesn’t have heath care that actually got pretty high government assistance in purchasing this Obamacare. I mean is it working for some percent of Americans? I think the group for which it is working best is the group that didn’t have heath insurance before and that now qualifies for Medicaid, which is the fully funded Federal and State government program. How many people is that? I think out of the people who have enrolled so far it is a pretty big chunk. So when they
first released the enrollment numbers I think it was the majority of the people enrolled. What is your personal attitude? Do you have Obamacare yourself, would you purchase it? I have employer provider insurance so I’m employed self-insured so I’m not directly affected by it. Have you looked at the plan that will be available to you in your current, if you didn’t have employer’s insurance? I have seen the plans available on the Washington DC exchange. A lot of them are very small networks of providers, there are certainly not very attractive. Also, I mean I am reasonably young and healthy, I wouldn’t qualify for subsidies, I don’t think the deal for me would be particularly good. So how much are you paying if you don’t have subsidies as a young healthy adult with no subsidies? That’s a good question. I would guess US$4,000 a year or something like that. What do people pay if we talk about private insurance? If you receive insurance through you, it is still private insurance, you would just buy it through Obamacare exchange. The thing is that a lot of people receive health insurance through the
 employer, get a massive tax cut in sense that employer provided health insurance is not taxed, so instead of, if your employer gives you a 100$ of health insurance, then the government takes zero dollars out of that, if the employer gives you a 100$ of salary, the Federal government will take 30$ out of that. And then with the remaining 70$ you would have to go and buy insurance for yourself. The way people receive insurance through their employers very much privileged through the existing system, so people are worse of who do not receive that and those who do not receive subsidies. When do you think Obamacare will be one year from now, two years from now or ten years from now? Would we still have it? I think a lot of it depends on the next year, so I think if the exchanges are not going to start working and the administration sees itself forced to delay the individual mandate by a year for example, I think that would be a big big blow problem for Democrats going into the Midterm elections and then after that if the Republicans win back the Senate, then it will be hard for the Administration to roll out of program as they intended. If they do that one & they keep the exchanges up but only very sick andamp; relatively old enrolled. Source Article: http://www.voiceofrussia.com, Images: brothermycroft, mshaugheysclass, daleyancy, themachoresponse, bgalrstate, randyhuntcpa, beinghappygirl, fritz-aviewfromthebeach, modernheretic3000, yastreblyansky............................................................. 
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